"There can be none--few at least, and none that will be insurmountable. I had you baptised at New Orleans as his son, and, with my papers, you will find the certificate of that baptism, while the papers themselves will explain all. Meanwhile, make your preparations for setting out. You need not wait for my death----"
"Don't talk of that!"
"I must talk of it. At best it cannot be far off. Let us face the inevitable. Be ready to go as soon as possible. If I am alive when you set out, I will give you the necessary documents; if I die before you start, they are here," and as he spoke he touched lightly the desk at which he always wrote.
[CHAPTER IV.]
AN ENCOUNTER
And now Julian Ritherdon was here, in British Honduras, within ten or fifteen miles of the estate known as Desolada--a name which had been given to the place by some original Spanish settlers years before his father and uncle had ever gone out to the colony. He was here, and that father and uncle were dead; here, and on the way to what was undoubtedly his own property; a property to which no one could dispute his right, since George Ritherdon, his uncle, had been the only other heir his father had ever had.
Yet, even as the animal which bore him continued to pace along amid all the rich tropical vegetation around them; even, too, as the yellow-headed parrots and the curassows chattered above his head and the monkeys leapt from branch to branch, he mused as to whether he was doing a wise thing in progressing towards Desolada--the place where he was born, as he reflected with a strange feeling of incredulity in his mind.
"For suppose," he thought to himself, "that when I get to it I find it shut up or in the occupation of some other settler--what am I to do then? How explain my appearance on the scene? I cannot very well ride up to the house on this animal and summon the garrison to surrender, like some knight-errant of old, and I can't stand parleying on the steps explaining who I am. I believe I have gone the wrong way to work after all! I ought to have gone and seen the Governor or the Chief Justice, or taken some advice, after stating who I was. Or Mr. Spranger! Confound it, why did I not present that letter of introduction to him before starting off here?"
The latter gentleman was a well-known planter and merchant living on the south side of Belize, to whom Julian had been furnished with a letter of introduction by a retired post-captain whom he had run against in London prior to his departure, and with whom he had dined at a Service Club. And this officer had given him so flattering an account of Mr. Spranger's hospitality, as well as the prominent position which that personage held in the little capital, that he now regretted considerably that he had not availed himself of the chance which had come in his way. More especially he regretted it, too, when there happened to come into his recollection the fact that the gallant sailor had stated with much enthusiasm--after dinner--that Beatrix Spranger, the planter's daughter, was without doubt the prettiest as well as the nicest girl in the whole colony.
However, he comforted himself with the reflection that the journey which he was now taking might easily serve as one of inspection simply, and that, as there was no particular hurry, he could return to Belize and then, before making any absolute claim upon his father's estate, take the advice of the most important people in the town.